November 8, 2009
Glenview Community Church
Rev. Dr. Pamela Keckler

The story of Ruth and Naomi is one of the most moving and powerful sagas in the Bible.
It’s a story about the courage, strength and faithfulness of two women who found themselves destitute and starving. In biblical days, a woman had only two ways to find a home, security, food – all the things we take for granted. She was either some man’s daughter or some man’s wife. If she had some relatives they might help her out, but basically a woman on her own would simply starve. Ruth was not only a widow without relatives, she was a foreigner. Near the end of the story Naomi instructs Ruth to deliberately seduce a man named Boaz because otherwise they will face starvation.

Here’s the rest of the story” that happens prior to this.
“There was a terrible famine in the land of Judah. There had been no rain for years. Naomi’s husband decided to go to the land of Moab, where the harvests had been good. So Naomi, her husband and two sons, took the long walk to the land of Moab.
Things went fairly well there. They had enough to eat. And the two sons found wives.
But then Naomi’s husband died. Soon after that, her two sons also died. So now we had Naomi with her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah. Three widows, who had no way of earning a living. 

In her desperation, Naomi announced that she was going to take the long walk back to Judah. “At least I have a few relatives there,” she said. “We’re going with you,” said the two younger women. “Don’t even think of it,” said Naomi. “Stay here. You have a few relatives who might help you. And you might find new husbands.” So Orpah agreed. She kissed Naomi and headed back home. But not Ruth. Ruth had developed a deep love and respect for her mother-in-law. She sang this song to Naomi (often sung at weddings):
“Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following after you.
Wherever you go I will go. Wherever you live I will live.
Your people shall be my people and your God my God.
Where you die, there I will die, and there will I be buried.”

And so Ruth went with Naomi back to Judah. The famine was over and things were better. But the only thing that kept the two women alive was Ruth out in the grain fields, gleaning, where young women could follow the harvesters and take the leftovers in the field, ,the hard-to-reach pieces easily left behind. It was backbreaking and hot work, but Ruth was determined to keep herself and her mother-in-law alive. Naomi knew this work was only a temporary solution. When the harvest was over, there would be nothing. So she hatched a plan to have Ruth deliberately seduce a distant cousin of hers, a man named Boaz. If it worked, Boaz would marry Ruth and everything would be fine again.”

Enter today’s scripture. Ruth became the wife of Boaz. They had a son. The scripture says that the women friends of Naomi said to her: Blessed be God, who has not left you this day without next of kin. May God’s name be known in Israel. This newborn child shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; and they named the baby Obed. The birth of this baby, grandfather to the greatest king in the history of Israel, represents hope for the future, not just for this older woman and her daughter-in-law, but for all of Israel itself.

Read the book of Matthew, chapter 1 – which gives the genealogy of Jesus. If you look at verse 5 you’ll see the father of Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the King. For Christians the story was important because Jesus traced his ancestry back to King David, and therefore back to a foreign widow named Ruth. 

Now the methods and means of Ruth and Naomi may sound a bit strange to us, but are not unknown, if we think of the way marriage has represented security for women right up until the last generation or two. Or how some women today are treated in various workplaces. Perhaps it’s not that different for those who find it necessary to offer themselves or let themselves be given by another in order to secure their future. We can be seduced in many different ways, can’t we – seduced by money, fame, friends, etc.?

Many theologians connect the story of Ruth with our own experience of community in the church. Ruth, after all, left her birth family behind and went on to a new place and a new family and a new community as well. We see her friends gathered around her at the end. That draws our attention to our life within the community of faith, a people of “ancient roots and stories, practices and laws.” Martin Copenhaver observes, “The family and the church are both places where we have the opportunity to learn to live with people we did not choose. Our fidelity to those we are stuck with can be a reflection of the fidelity of a God who is stuck with us all.” Ruth had a choice to stay with her family; others may not have that possibility open to them, and the only road is the road ahead, full of risks and restoration, to a new and different community. The church, our church has the invitation, the call, to offer hospitality to those who have not known hospitality in their own homes or even other places of worship. We welcome them to our sanctuary, to our worship, to choir, to handbells, to PYF, to Women’s Association, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” And if we say it, we’d better mean it. As one minister said after he baptized a baby and carried the child around the church, “In this family of faith, water is thicker than blood.” That is a reminder of our baptismal ties to one another, and the covenant with one another in which we live.

The covenant of care and faithfulness is at the heart of who we must be as a church of Jesus Christ. “We might say that God is between the lines of this story, just as God is always present in our own lives, whether we recognize it or not.” One writer says, “Ruth’s story enlarges and deepens the story of God’s habit of welcoming the stranger and of setting the bar high for the way humanity encounters the other. Her unexpected welcome and faithfulness shines a light on the nature of God’s grace and relationship with us as we have new situations and problems.” 

When have you faced a decision requiring you to take a risk on behalf of another person?
What did you do? What were the risks? Was it worth it? What might you be willing to risk or give up for the sake of a loved one in desperate need?
It’s risky to take in strangers, sometimes it’s even risky to take in our family. It’s risky to raise our standards on how we care for one another, how we accept each other, how we respect one another. It’s risky to sit with that person in the lunch room whom everyone else ignores. But sometimes when we take a risk, we act as an agent of God’s hope and restoration. You give that person hope. You help restore their life. “Restorer of life” means “turning.” You help turn that individual’s life around to something better, even for a moment. Maybe for a lifetime.

Joan Chittister says, “It is in community that we come to see God in the other. It is in community that we see our own emptiness filled up. It is in community that calls me beyond the pinched horizons of my own life, my own country, my own race, and gives me the gifts I do not have within me.”

God’s people are called to seek restoration for those who are vulnerable and injured.
We are God’s people and there are people in this congregation who are vulnerable, hurt, injured, angry, sad, grieving, happy and satisfied. As God’s people we can be that agent of change. We can be the nourisher. We can help restore their life, their sense of being.
We can be an encourager. We can pray. We can care. We can celebrate with them.

For whose sake might God be calling you and your church to take a bold risk?
Who might God be calling you to help restore their soul? The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…He restoreth my soul. Does your soul need a bit of restoring?  We’ve been through a lot in the last year, the last month. We’ve done lots of risking. Some of it may be good. Some of it may not be good. Some of it may be questioned. Only time will tell. But when we risk, we need to be restored. How’s the restoration going?

At the Women’s Fall Retreat several said that they wanted to reclaim this sanctuary. They wanted to restore their soul. I think the place to start is by being here and by praying.
Today for those who would like, you are invited to stand by this altar or on the steps below if that’s more comfortable or safer for you. No, I’m not giving an altar call, for those who grew up in that tradition. When I arrived at GCC in the fall of 1995, the senior minister told me to come by this altar sometime and often and just stand here and touch it and pray so that my soul might be restored, because God is here in this sanctuary.

So I’m offering you that place of restoration today, if you want. If not, that’s okay too. God can restore you right where you are, in your home, in the woods, by the beautiful lake. And if you want to come back to the sanctuary later this week, just ask and we’ll open the door. May we be the hope that people need and may we trust God to strengthen us to risk and to be ready to be restored. Amen.

Resources taken from Seasons: Worship Resources andRalph Milton’s Rumors: Preaching Materials, November 2009.